State of New Mexico
UX Design Team
Business Analyst Team
Development Team
Client Team
1.5 years
Residents of New Mexico face a broken and siloed process for applying to and managing state benefits. With applications and tracking systems scattered across multiple platforms, each with inconsistent branding, visual design, and user experiences, navigating the system was overwhelming and inefficient. This fragmentation forces users to juggle disjointed processes, often leading to confusion, duplicate applications, and missed opportunities for critical support. The lack of a unified, intuitive system compounds the stress of those already facing challenging circumstances, leaving them frustrated and underserved.
To address the fragmented and frustrating experience, we designed a centralized, user-friendly platform that simplifies the entire process. Our solution provides a one-stop shop for residents to learn about, apply for, and track their benefits - all in one place.
The success of our design solution was reflected in significant improvements across key metrics.
The benefits application and tracking process was highly fragmented, and our goal was to maximize the impact of unifying these platforms. To achieve this, I conducted user interviews with stakeholders (residents, state employees, and administrators) to identify pain points and performed competitive research to understand industry standards.
Using user pain points, I defined the application’s structure and mapped user flows for a cohesive experience. This led to a unified application and dashboard where users could apply, track, and manage benefits in one place.
To bring the vision to life, I designed wireframes and interactive prototypes for iterative testing with real users. I refined the experience, ensuring branding, nomenclature, and interactions felt intuitive and aligned with the new tone and voice through usability testing. I also provided detailed UX documentation and addressed technical constraints during development handoff to ensure the design was faithfully built.
How might we simplify the benefits application process in New Mexico, so people can focus on getting help rather than navigating a complicated system?
Over four weeks, our team collaborated with the client team, including state employees and program administrators, to review their workflows and system experiences. I, then, synthesized user interview findings, identified pain points, and spearheaded an affinity mapping session to organize and prioritize insights.
These conversations revealed major pain points, such as:
I conducted market research to analyze other state applications and multi-layered platforms, focusing on how they organized and compartmentalized complex information. This helped identify best practices for structuring applications and dashboards with many moving parts, ensuring the solution was scalable.
With insights from user research and industry best practices, I defined the application’s foundation, ensuring its integrity remained intact as the design evolved and adapted.
The structure meant breaking the application into 3 distinct sections:
Next, I started by mapping out one benefit (child support) to understand how the application could branch out. This allowed me to easily integrate the remaining benefits, streamlining content and pages into a single, unified application.
This process further helped visualize how all the siloed content sections would connect and helped us set expectations on how the templates of pages we needed to design and how they’d flow together.
We applied the same user-centered approach to design the dashboard, prioritizing key information relevant to users without unnecessary distractions. By analyzing how users interacted with the current dashboards and leveraging our findings from the market research, we strategically unified tasks into modular sections. This allowed users to:
With a clear grasp of user needs and a solid information architecture, I moved into the design phase to turn those insights into a seamless, intuitive experience that aligned with the new branding while meeting both user and business goals.
At this stage, I started wireframing layout ideas for the application and dashboard, balancing user needs with researched design patterns to create an intuitive and effective structure. This helped me visualize repetitive user flows and identify reusable components as the application and dashboard evolved.
Given the large scale of the application and dashboard redesign, I expanded on our team’s building block and template strategy by enhancing the component library and creating detailed usage guidelines.
This allowed us to efficiently integrate relevant content as pages were developed while maintaining a consistent visual identity and branding. This modular approach ensured scalability, efficiency, and a cohesive user experience across the project.
We designed specific components for key parts of the application, such as form inputs, navigation menus, chapter pages, and individual modules. These components were drag-and-dropped into place as we constructed the full application.
We applied the same approach to the dashboard, designing dashboard-specific components that formed the foundation of its pages. These components were organized into a hierarchy of templates, ensuring consistency and scalability. By drag-and-dropping these modular elements, we created a flexible and intuitive experience tailored to user needs.
With the new specifications, I applied the visual design to build out the key pages that formed the foundation of the new portal experience.
The process was far from linear. Over 6-7 months, we conducted approximately 72 user interviews with past and present state benefit applicants, while looping in the development team for prototype walkthroughs.
I uncovered several technical constraints and usability issues early on, addressing them proactively with the development team to ensure a smoother transition into the build phase.
One of our main challenges was the robust tracking feature of the application. I discovered that the plan the client chose for the new portal, Salesforce’s Enterprise Plan, limited backend customization, making it difficult to sync data across siloed applications and display accurate tracking.
To solve this, I collaborated with developers to pivot to a 'reveal as we go' approach. I tested multiple versions with real users, refining the design until we landed on a dynamic tracking solution that adapted to the applicant’s progress as they completed the application - all while working within the technical constraints.
Based on the client’s insights that most applicants had a 5th-grade tech understanding, I conducted 2 rounds of testing (24 sessions) to validate the effectiveness of new UI elements in the portal. These included bold notice indicators, tooltips, PSA messages, and friendly navigator language across the web experience.
Testing revealed a 85% success rate in task completion, confirming the effectiveness of these elements in delivering a clear and intuitive experience for all users.
"This new portal is so much easier to use, and thankfully it's all in one place! I used to dread checking my benefits..."
- New Mexico resident
To streamline development, I managed the building blocks/design system library in Figma, which documented standardized templates for the application and dashboard. The library detailed each component’s usage patterns, margins, and sizes, allowing developers to build once and reuse across the platform. This approach ensured consistency and efficiency, as any updates to a component automatically applied everywhere it was used.
Designing for such a diverse audience required balancing client expectations, technical constraints, and tight deadlines, all while staying focused on creating an inclusive user experience. By prioritizing critical pain points and collaborating closely with stakeholders, we delivered effective solutions that worked within constraints without compromising usability.
The impact was profound:
This project reinforced that great design isn’t just about meeting requirements; it’s about solving real problems and creating a lasting, meaningful impact on the people who need it most.
